


Any Less

by wolfsan11



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abstract-ish, Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Eventual gender neutral pronouns for Pidge, Grief/Mourning, How do I tag this even, It's killing me when you're away, M/M, Mysterious omnipotent beings of the universe, NOW WITH A HAPPY ENDING, Not your pre-kerberos Sheith, Post-it Notes, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Stab me with a rusted spoon, TISSUES NEEDED I GUESS, although tissues may still be needed?, i promise this is happy, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2018-12-04 05:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11548587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsan11/pseuds/wolfsan11
Summary: In one world, the Black Paladin of Voltron, Takashi Shirogane, goes missing for the second time in memory. He’s never found.In this one, Lieutenant Takashi Shirogane comes across an old shack and the remnants of an abandoned life in the desert, not far from his place of employment at the Galaxy Garrison.





	1. Any Less

**Author's Note:**

> So this came to me in bits, over yesterday and today, so I sat down and just hammered it out. I guess you could say it's up for interpretation but . . . Proceed with tissues?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In one world, the Black Paladin of Voltron, Takashi Shirogane, goes missing for the second time in memory. He’s never found.
> 
> In this one, Lieutenant Takashi Shirogane comes across an old shack and the remnants of an abandoned life in the desert, not far from his place of employment at the Galaxy Garrison.

Shiro finds it while out on patrol.

They’re not supposed to be here, not really. These are the outskirts of the Garrison’s lands, the unmarked border which they’re only supposed to skim the edges of before returning to the barracks.

Sometimes though, it doesn’t take much convincing for him to diverge a little from the beaten path; most times, the senior officers turn a blind eye to it. There’s a childhood dream here, of adventure so oft yearned for and if Shiro can find it in the odd moments of chance and harmless mischief, he’ll take it.

It’s a joy to be so unhindered, brief as it is. He’s speeding through the desert, unbound, sand flying under the wings of his hovercraft as he pushes it to its limits. There’s no one here to see it, to scowl and reprimand them over improper conduct. It’s just a detour from his straightforward life of reaching out towards the stars.

Or so he thought.

From a distance, it’s a hump on the flat landscape, barely visible even against a backdrop of the horizon. The shack is dilapidated, wood crumbling with rot. When Shiro alights and steps foot onto the ancient porch, there’s a point of surreal clarity. The layer of dust on the floor is thick and untouched, no sign of recent life at all.

He breathes in the scent of age and decay, grinning at the prospect of what he’ll find. Throwing one last conspiratorial look at his partner over his shoulder, he pushes at the broken door and enters the space of what seems an abandoned and forgotten house.

_"It’s tiny",_  is all he registers at first.

There’s the skittering of creatures fleeing from the sounds of his boots, hissing in dismay, as he, the guest, unwittingly drives them from their home. Shiro has a moment to feel regret before his attention is captured once more.

Peeling wallpaper, a sun-bleached poster, torn bedsheets hanging off nails to cover the windows in their meagre capacity. A red darkness pervades each corner of the room, lit only by shafts of sunlight entering through the holey sheets. The rays kiss the surface of an old moth-eaten couch, and over slabs of concrete laid scattered amongst fallen piles of books. There’s a rickety shelf full of what looks like antique radio equipment, unplugged and shoved aside, left behind.

Shiro stares at each memento of someone’s life and wonders. Who had it been? A scientist? A conspiracy theorist? A quondam employee of the Garrison, a government agent on a covert mission?

He wanders further in, lets his fingers whisper over another set of books on another shelf, the titles blurring from quantum physics to the fundamentals of flight propulsion to string theory. They’re standard textbooks issued by the Garrison for any cadet on their path to spaceflight. It makes him flinch slightly, connection lost as he lifts his hand away.

_"Formerly of the Garrison, then. Okay."_

There’s more here, he knows it. There’s something about this place that clings at his bones, recognition pressing against the back of his skull.

It’s as he turns to his right that he pays attention to the fourth wall, a stained and jaundiced sheet hiding its secrets. It might be more windows, or books, or equipment. The clench at his gut tells him this is the more he’s searching for. He reaches out, breath curdling in his lungs as he sinks his fist into the musty sheet and pulls it free.

There’s a large map set front and centre of a corkboard, and Shiro recognises some of the landmarks; the desert in all its glory. There are spots marked by pushpins and writing in bold black ink. Threads slink across from one end to the other, tying together items: notes filled with more writing, and photos, preserved from the elements and time itself.

There are carvings on cavern walls and paintings of blue, cat-like figures; photos of caves, and a shot from high above, of sprawling peaks and valleys made of desert stone.

The post-it notes are everywhere – yellow, pink, blue – covered in a messy scrawl that signifies the occupied mind. Black pen, blue pen, red pen, even marker on some. Shiro thinks to his desk in his office at the Garrison, the stationery lying in a pile at the bottom of his drawer. No one really uses them anymore, preferring the ease of apps and alarms for reminders.

These are not reminders though. Not really.

The first note has numbers; two sets, circled twice in the tell-tale roughness of graphite, and ringed by a set of indents, as though the writer had tapped the point of his pencil on its surface several times. Shiro recognises the numbers as coordinates, and they’re stuck right over the most prominent of the lion images.

The second has words, vague murmurs about a pull and a need and a dream.

The third and fourth are more coordinates, while the fifth is filled with a lament over a dead end.

The sixth reads like a diary entry written at night, insensible with missing words, but it ends with _I miss you so damn much–_

Shiro stands there, head pounding, air rattling in his ribs.

He drags his eyes to the next note, catching on the ragged quality of the writing, the way it scores through the paper, nearly tearing clear though to the other side. Suddenly he’s looking at them all, gaze snapping from one note to the other and seeing the hurried strokes of approaching despair, each of them tipped into the paper like a desperate prayer.

_You remember that asshole, Iverson? Well–_

_Found another carving today!_

_I haven’t slept in two days_

_Sometimes I want to give up, but I don’t think I could bear to disappoi–_

_I don’t like who I’ve been without you_

_I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you why did you have to leave_

_–it’s killing me when you’re away–_

_Shir–_

Shiro stumbles back like he’s been set alight, wrapping his arms around himself as, conversely, a shiver slides down his spine. His vision lurches, stomach twisting with the sensation of fear, and then he’s spinning on his heel and hurrying out, all but throwing himself out the door.

The brightness of day is near-blinding after the dimness within, but it’s a welcome relief. The wind whips up and he’s forced to close his eyes, grit slicing against his cheeks and crusting in his lashes. His heart pumps a warrior’s beat and Shiro pants as though he’s run the entire circuit in the Garrison instead of the three meters inside the house.

The house . . .

“Shiro!”

He squints against the afternoon sun, the blur of an olive grey uniform materialising as his eyes adjust. His partner waits for him, wriggling patiently on his own hovercraft and calling for him.

“Get your butt over here! We _do_ have patrol times to adhere to, y’know?"

Matt glares at him with mock fury, and relief shoots through Shiro at the familiar sight. He straightens up and throws him a quick smile, as though he’s not currently breathless from a pain and grief he doesn't understand.

“Sorry about that,” he responds. “Guess I got distracted.”

Matt snorts and shakes his head.

“I know how you get about your little nerd projects, but we have to go. We can come back another da _–_ ”

“No.”

The response is out before he can stop it, and Matt pauses, eyebrows slowly rising to his hairline. He looks Shiro over, eyes going sharp at whatever he sees.

“Did something happen?” he asks, quietly.

_Did it?_

Shiro smiles again, the kind of grin that convinces no one of anything, but tells them not to push.

“I’m fine, Matt. There’s nothing much in there, just some furniture and . . . stuffy old books.”

He wants to bite his tongue. He wants to leave.

Matt watches him carefully for another second, then nods.

“Alright. Let’s go then.”

Shiro clambers on to his hovercraft and kicks it into gear, feeling the last tremble in his limbs fade with the roar of the engines. Matt leads the way back to the Garrison, and Shiro follows after him, his heart lightening with each kilometre they gain away from the house.

He doesn’t once turn back.

-

In one world, the Black Paladin of Voltron, Takashi Shirogane, goes missing for the second time in memory. He’s never found.

In this one, Lieutenant Takashi Shirogane comes across an old shack and the remnants of an abandoned life in the desert, not far from his place of employment at the Galaxy Garrison. If anyone was to ask, he’d tell them there’s nothing to be found there.

Somewhere else, there’s a decision in someone’s mind, so selfish that it could almost be selfless. Somewhere else, Keith stares at the wall of his room in the Castle of Lions and thinks: " _I can probably learn to live without you, Shiro. But I know you can do the same for me. Right now . . . that's what the others need."_

-

_Take me. Only me. Not Shiro. Not anyone else._

_Just me._

_. . ._ **_Agreed_** _._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["I swear if they swipe our weekend privileges because of you. . ." Matt grumbles at Shiro as they approach the Garrison, "It's my sister's birthday on Sunday and we're both not allowed to miss it."
> 
> Shiro feigns a terrified look although he's actually rather amused.
> 
> "Is she bringing those two friends of hers?"
> 
> "Oh dammit, she will, won't she? Maybe it's a good thing if we miss out. . . "
> 
> "Hey now, they're a good team!"
> 
> "Yeah, yeah, whatever!"]
> 
>  
> 
> :D
> 
> Shout-out to gayredpaladins on twitter for inspiring the idea while we were talking about the post it notes and the sheer angst of Shiro in the shack, finding letters from Keith addressed to him.
> 
> Also, to Sochan and Ali, thank you for effectively killing me with your latest Sheithy music recs.


	2. Astronomy in Reverse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt calls him crazy, then offers to come with him because that’s just the way he is. Worry reflects in the way he chews at his nails and pinches his glasses between two fingers to shove them back into place on his nose.
> 
> Shiro gives him a smile, pats him on the back and tells him he’ll be fine. He doesn’t give weight to the clamminess of his own skin, or how everything in him is rebelling against this almost as much as it yearns to reach out and discover the truth.
> 
> Almost.
> 
> Despite the conflict, despite everything . . . Shiro goes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this in one sitting because it killed me and it's probably my favourite work and I just . . . well I hope you enjoy it too? Look ma, happy ending???

Shiro goes back.

He’d convinced himself he wouldn’t, his every gut instinct telling him it was a bad idea, that he’d find nothing more than he’d already seen. That the eeriness would not have been swept away to clarity, that the notes would not have been rearranged for a happy ending or a story to make sense of.

The thing is, it won’t stop eating at him.

Matt calls him crazy, then offers to come with him because that’s just the way he is. Worry reflects in the way he chews at his nails and pinches his glasses between two fingers to shove them back into place on his nose.

Shiro gives him a smile, pats him on the back and tells him he’ll be fine. He doesn’t give weight to the clamminess of his own skin, or how everything in him is rebelling against this almost as much as it yearns to reach out and discover the truth.

Almost.

He kicks his hover-bike into gear, tucks himself into the warmth of his jacket and rides out into the desert in search of the mysterious shack that had left him with more questions than he could handle.

Despite the conflict, despite everything . . . Shiro goes back.

 

* * *

 

The moment he steps back onto that porch, he knows.

It doesn’t stop him from entering anyway.

The house is the same; same layer of dust, same rabble of items spread across make-shift tables and other surfaces, same skitter of creatures hissing and running from the sound of his boots. The moth-eaten sheets across the windows let in sparse sunlight that undermines the blazing heat outside, enough to make him feel as though he’s been transported somewhere else entirely.

There’s no sign of his footsteps from months before. The dust lays undisturbed, an even and thick, ash-like coating crusting the floor.

Somehow, there’s something missing. It feels gutted out; it's presence removed. It's been chiselled and ground and torn away until it’s unrecognisable, until it’s just—just—

Just a house and nothing else.

His eyes slide across each corner of the room, in desperate search for more. Truth be told, he’s only stalling for more time, and it's not long before he's finally run out of excuses. He steps forward towards that fourth wall, heart in his throat, palms sweating as the silence strengthens into a hum.

 

_Shir—_

 

Shiro looks up.

And the silence descends once more, blank and resounding, ears left ringing from it.

There’s nothing there.

He takes a shallow breath, then another, eyes wide. The wall is bare. No sheet covering up its secrets. No maps or threads to connect clues, no photos, no mysterious caverns or blue lions, no scribbles on pages or post-it notes, no coordinates or tear-diluted ink or desperate pleas or words telling him how much he is missed, how much he is loved, how much—

 

— _it’s killing me when you’re away_ —

 

Déjà vu and he’s stumbling out of the house again, hand clapped over his mouth.

Déjà vu and his vision lurches once more; this time, he lets the bile spill up his throat. Acid burns out the cries he can’t shake loose and he lets the dirt take the brunt of his agony.

Déjà vu and the answers are further out of reach than ever and _he can’t understand this._

When he straightens up, he doesn’t dare look back. His vision is blurred, wet, darkened. He can’t see past his hover-bike, but that’s okay, that’s enough, he doesn’t need to see beyond this.

Shiro throws his leg over his bike and flies, not looking back; never looking back.

He’s never felt regret for things he knows nothing about. Apparently, there’s a first time for everything.

 

* * *

 

Matt doesn’t say anything when Shiro comes back. The sheer gratitude he feels for that is a hammer to the thoughts circling his head and he lets them fall away. For today, at least.

 

* * *

 

They haunt him sometimes, those post-it notes. There had been someone there, not long ago. Their fingerprints had been wiped clean beneath the decay of time, all evidence of their presence destroyed. It's like an old house throw open to new sunlight, driving out generations of moths and breaking ropes of thickened cobwebs into a shower of particles. The slit-thin line between _real_ and _possibly_ real had been merged into one solid block of dull uncertainty. _Not real._

And still, he knows. There had been someone there.

Someone important.

 

* * *

 

It happens suddenly.

Matt’s telling him a story as they walk down the hallway, waving his arms unnecessarily like he’s the maestro to an orchestra. Shiro’s pretty sure Matt does it for the reactions he gets from the Commanders and cadets alike.

He’s talking about how Katie, or rather, Pidge now—“I told them Sasuke’s a perfectly nice name and they punched me! Talk about a lack of taste!”—had been swiftly banned from using the lab outside of classes after their latest invention had gone haywire.  Naturally, their response had been to simply build an improved version of the Garrison tech they'd needed . . . out of salvaged scrap material.

“I'm telling you, you should have seen the _look_ on Iverson’s face.”

Shiro shakes his head, amused, because _of course_ the youngest Holt would spark up against Iverson’s wrath and immediately set out to prove themself in one flashy stroke. He should have expected nothing less.

“Matt, you realise they’re just gonna get—oh!”

Somebody crashes into his shoulder from behind suddenly, nearly sending him off balance. Shiro flails a little but manages to stay on his feet. He looks up in time to meet the violet eyes of a rather harried-looking young man in a grey uniform.

Huh.

“What the hell, man?” Matt calls out, indignant on Shiro’s behalf, but the sound is muffled in the roar of waves in Shiro’s ears. Or maybe it’s the roar of jet engines, or a rocket. A crowd sends him off in fond farewell, and there, in the distance—

 

_Come back safe, you hear me? Shir—_

 

“Sorry!” The man calls out, apologetic, but he doesn’t stop to make sure Shiro’s alright. He turns around and breaks into a flat sprint down the hall until he’s out of sight.

Shiro rubs at his shoulder and stares after him, mystified.

 “—gane’s late for his first class, of course. I can picture Iverson’s face already. ‘I expect _better_ from instructors of your calibre’, blah blah, whine whine.”

Matt is muttering this with a very impressive scowl on his face, but Shiro can’t quite connect to the words. They float, meaningless, just like the thoughts now escaping his grasp. They’re the odd snowflakes in early winter, drawn inevitably down to the too-warm earth and melting before they can make contact.

They’re post-it notes, scattered on the floor over a bed of dust.

 

_I miss you I miss you_

_I miss you I miss you_

_why did you have to—_

 

“What did you say his name was?” Shiro asks, quietly.

Matt throws him an incredulous stare. “Who, Kogane? Dude, as if you don’t know his name and favourite colour and favourite dish and literally every other fact about him since he first showed up . . . Shiro?”

“Mhmm?” He’s thinking about the lone star map that had been tucked in one corner of that board in the shack. It’d displayed asterisms, he recalls. Star formations that people easily recognise, that they always expect to see in the night sky. An important tool for navigation, _long ago_ , but Shiro is thinking of the present. Uproot one of many, and you lose the formation. There’d be a ripple, a loss to it . . . right? Then, what if you put it back together instead?

“Shiro, are you . . . why are you crying?”

Shiro blinks, coming back to himself. Hot tears spill over his lash line and he wipes at them absently, a little surprised.

“I don’t know,” he says. Well, it’s only a partial lie, really.

“I don’t know,” he repeats, helplessly. He huffs, swipes at the tears again, smile stretching wide to accompany the joy swelling in his heart. There’s this sensation, like sections of the universe realigning and settling into gaping cracks that had been left wide for too long. The fit isn’t quite right, but who needs the perfection of smoothness, of not knowing what was missed, when he can treasure the ragged quality of having it returned instead?

“ . . . It’s a good day, I think,” he murmurs. Matt looks at him for a moment longer, then shrugs.

“If you say so, Shiro.”

 

* * *

 

_‘You can do this,’ he tells himself. ‘For Voltron. For all of them. For Shiro. This is the least you can do.’_

 

_Take me. Only me. Not Shiro. Not anyone else._

_Just me._

**_. . . Agreed._ **

 

_The Being he’d sought out is a void of black. There’s nothing to see, yet Keith gets the impression that they’re wearing a gentle smile. That seems awfully cruel,  when he’s pixelating into dust._

**_My apologies  . . . But really, you invoke it yet know nothing of the power in the intent of sacrifice . . . that alone would sate me for aeons . . ._ **

_Keith’s dissolving heart thumps one last time._

**_Paladin. Is it not true, that to not exist would mean nothing . . . only that you never approached me at all?_ **

_Somehow, he’s no longer afraid._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“—and Shirogane, this is Mr Keith Kogane, Galaxy Garrison’s new assistant flight instructor. I need you to supervise him while he’s on probation.”
> 
> “Yes, sir! . . . Hi. I’m Takashi Shirogane, it’s good to—uh, nice to meet you, in person.” A slip-up. That’s fine.
> 
> “ . . . It’s nice to meet you too, sir.” Well, no. That wouldn’t do.
> 
> “Please. You can call me Shiro.”
> 
> “Okay. . . Shiro. I’m—I’m Keith, then.”
> 
> Shiro smiles. Or maybe it was not a slip-up.
> 
> “Good to have you here, Keith.”
> 
> Violet eyes glint.
> 
> “It’s good to be here.”]


End file.
